


Never Can Say Goodbye

by turnedherbrain



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, Post-Canon, Post-Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:07:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23459077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/turnedherbrain/pseuds/turnedherbrain
Summary: After Raymond’s killing, both Eve and Villanelle are in a precarious situation and – according to Villanelle – even more bound together than before. But in this wicked game, who is poised to ultimately win?Predicted scenes for 3.01
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Kudos: 13





	1. Je ne...

**Author's Note:**

> Headcanon for Eve x Villanelle scenes in 3.01. I’ve deliberately not watched the series trailer (but have seen a few gifsets :)).
> 
> Playlist:  
> [Je ne Regrette Rien](https://youtu.be/Q3Kvu6Kgp88) – Edith Piaf  
> [Never Can Say Goodbye](https://youtu.be/CCSvNZWpXaM) – Gloria Gaynor

Villanelle was lying back on the double bed, arms spread out on the counterpane, fingers exploring the material of the covers. Cheap. Polyester mixed with viscose. Not what she was used to, but then she’d had more, and she’d had less. Right now, she was experiencing less. She was supposed to keep still and listen to the speech emanating from her phone, yet she was disturbed – truly, truly disturbed – by the disembodied voice and its soothing tones. And it was soooooooo slooooooow.

‘Breathe in…’ instructed the voice. ‘Hold. Now, breathe out. Imagine each out-breath is like a dark cloud; vapour filled with smoke…’

 _Bull- **shit**_ , thought Villanelle, stabbing her phone with her thumb so the litany would stop. _My breath isn’t like smoke. What the fuck?_ She picked up the handset and stared at the app description. ‘Mindful Meditations: 100 Easy, Guided Practices for the Everyday.’ It had been free on the app store. No wonder. Good things were _not_ free. They were to be paid for.

She sat up on the bed and looked around the sparse room accusingly. The apartment was much, much smaller than the one in Paris. The wall opposite was bare, with a stain that had crept down the plasterwork. The one window was closed tight, and hardly covered with thin lace curtains that were yellowed with age. There was a wardrobe containing the kind of outfits she hated. Browns, blacks; dismal, muddy greys. Clothes made to blend in and be inconspicuous. She’d left everything else behind in Rome. How she dreamt of those things she’d left. The Etro silk dress. The Miu Miu sandals. The Versace clutch bag. Eve.

Eve.

Eve. Yes, Eve. Even Eve.

Especially as she knew that Eve wasn’t dead. (Well, the killshot wasn’t exactly aimed in the right place.)

And especially, Villanelle thought, fingering her phone restlessly, now she had the means to contact her.

Eve. Eve.

EveEveEveEveeveveveve

The meditation app hadn’t worked at all. Fuck being mindful. She was hungry. She wanted to roam. She wanted to eat.


	2. Never can...

Eve Polastri swung herself to sitting in the hospital bed, viewing the stepped grey Lego blocks of London skyline through the ward window. Although only one part of her was wounded, her whole body hurt, and a miasma of conflicting thoughts threatened to escape.

Lucky, everyone kept saying. You’ve been lucky. Lucky to be alive. Lucky the bullet went straight through. Lucky to be found. Lucky to be treated and repatriated so swiftly (MI6 had their hand in that, she had no doubt).

But she didn’t feel lucky. She felt… a sickening unease. Her sealed complicity with Villanelle, since Rome, made her feel this dread. Reaching under her hospital gown, her hand crept to the place where the dressings and bandage were applied around her waist. She imagined the bullet hole, skin puckered where they’d sewn it up. Imagined the blood. Imagined the scene again, as she’d turned to leave, and Villanelle had aimed the gun…

She shuddered and retracted her hand. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. In Villanelle’s case, it was a wound for a wound. Now they both had symmetrical scars on their abdomens.

Leaning across to the bedside cabinet, she thumbed her phone to check for messages. There had been many well-wishers in this last week. Friends, family, ex-colleagues. Jess had been particularly adamant about visiting ‘against the wishes of you-know-who’, although she hadn’t been able to impart any news of Hugo. Eve knew what that meant; her face blanching with dismay. Elena had sent a bouquet, but stayed away. ‘I hope you understand xxx’ said the message. Of course. And Kenny. Kenny had texted a couple of times. Sweet Kenny. She’d forever underestimated him. His messages were bland, truncated: like again he was trying to tell her something but couldn’t. ‘Stay well’ said the second message.

Nothing from Niko.

Dreams of Bill. Warning her not to become involved. Nightmares of Raymond that sometimes intruded into her waking reality, where he would appear, like Banquo at the feast shaking his gory locks. Even shutting her eyes didn’t shut him out. Her thoughts of Villanelle were constant, troubled, disturbed.

And Niko. Nothing at all from Niko.

His absolute absence from her life was worse than any wound. Without doubt, she had to take responsibility: but given the circumstances it was unlike him not to send a brief message, even now they were estranged. ‘How you doing?’ would be nice. Maybe she shouldn’t expect. Maybe he was all cosied up to his schoolteacher friend with her drawerful of padded bras, ready to seduce him…

Eve shuddered. What had she become? Seriously, the parade of doctors in and out of the ward needed to include a psychiatrist. She was finally losing it.

Hauling herself to standing, she winced with sharp pain as her feet hit the lino floor. Take it easy. Slow and steady. No running now. Wandering into the near-empty corridor, she came upon a cleaner occupied with a massive industrial polisher, swinging it from side to side until the surface gleamed. They were bent over the machine and had wireless headphones in, singing along cheerfully:

_I never can say goodbye, noooooo_

_no, no, no, I_

_I never can say goodbye_

_Every time I think I’ve had enough…_

_Mmmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm…._

As Eve passed them by on her way to the loo, she smiled despite herself.


	3. ...regrette rien

_Non, rien de rien_

_Non, je ne regrette rien!!_

Villanelle turned up the volume to maximum and sang along, pirouetting about the apartment. Although really, pirouetting wasn’t her style. She waltzed broadly. She expansively spun in time. She forced open the one window and shouted out the words into the small interior courtyard, until they smacked against the cold outside air. This felt… good?

Knock knock knock

Bam bam bam

_La, la la la, regrette rien!!_

How impatient some people were! Make. Them. Wait.

Bam-bam-bam-BAM-BAM

A muffled voice shouted something from the other side of her apartment door. Really. _Now_ they were spoiling the music! Making no effort to turn it down, Villanelle flung open the apartment door and greeted her visitor with a questioning expression. It was her next-door neighbour. His red face looked like a side of uncooked beef, and he was wearing a white vest that strained over his puffed-out chest. His corpulent figure made him appear a big man, but in fact no – he was very small. Very, very small.

He said something to her in a language she didn’t understand. Villanelle could have killed him right there and then, but instead she asked: ‘English? Do you speak English?’ in her most impeccable, flawless accent. She would calm him first. She switched off the song midway through _regrette_.

The man was nonplussed, evidently expecting more of an argument. ‘Yes. I… Your music was too loud.’

‘I’m sorry. Would you like some tea?’ She put on her best smile, like the ones in the toothpaste ads – wide and bright and unthreatening.

The man walked into the apartment and she shut the door behind him. It swung closed with a heavy click.


	4. ...say goodbye

Eve had only just returned to the room and sat back on the bed when her phone buzzed. She scrabbled for it like it was her next set of painkillers. Please, let it be Niko. But it was an unknown number. Carolyn, perhaps? This would be typical of her. She answered the call with trepidation.

‘Darling Eve!’

‘You.’

A growl. A low, guttural, growl.

Not a great start, thought Villanelle. But still. ‘Eve, I know this must come as a shock. Darling…’

‘Don’t you _dare_ call me that. You left me for dead.’

‘Not at all. It was merely a warning shot. If I’d wanted you dead, I’d have shot you in the heart, or the head. Or have you forgotten I’m a hired assassin?’ Villanelle stood over the prone figure of her neighbour, his limbs unnaturally askew like a broken puppet. Then changing her tone, she spoke with pretend levity: ‘But _I’m_ very well, thank you for asking! I’m much, much better now. I’m meditating!’

‘Good for you.’ Eve’s tone was now uncontained sarcasm. ‘How in the hell did you get this number?’

‘Ahhh,’ Villanelle’s laugh was like a clear bell; the one she’d learned to mimic in Paris. Her girlish laugh. ‘It was quite difficult. I had to pressure Konstantin. I had to promise not to… _bother_ him or his family again. You know. Then he asked Carolyn, who stole it from Kenny. Actually, that makes it sound easy. But it wasn’t. It was difficult.’

‘I wish you hadn’t. I wish you’d never contact me again.’

‘You don’t mean that.’

Silence. Eve breathed out heavily. ‘Villanelle. You have taken _everything_ from me. My job. My life. Niko won’t call me…’

‘Poor baby,’ soothed Villanelle, sounding like the voiceover artist on the meditation app. Eve scrunched her fingers into hard, resolute fists against the bedcovers and didn’t answer. ‘If it helps you to know: the last time I saw Niko, he was mainly fine. As for his simpering companion, she wasn’t so good…’

‘What in hell did you do?’ Eve was alternately numb with shock and alert with fascination. Perhaps this was what she’d wanted?

‘Oh c’mon, like you didn’t think of doing that yourself?’ admonished Villanelle, echoing her thoughts. ‘Don’t be such a drama queen.’

‘I wouldn’t kill like that – on a whim. Because someone annoyed me.’

‘So… you’ll only kill to defend somebody you love?’ Villanelle’s remark was like an arrow aimed at a quivering target.

‘I’m not like you. I think about Raymond every night, every day; every minute. I think about what I did. I think about the consequences of taking a life.’ Eve’s chest was tight with constricted emotion and her breath came in short gasps.

Villanelle kicked her neighbour’s leg. Nothing. No movement. Good. ‘Listen. About Raymond. We need to team up. We’ll be better off together. Raymond was valuable to the Twelve, and now they’re looking for me… for us…’

Eve was surprised to hear what sounded like fear at the other end of the line. Because Villanelle didn’t experience fear. That was what made her so effective an assassin.

‘I’m going to say: absolutely no to teaming up,’ replied Eve, underlining the sarcasm to make it absolutely, abundantly clear.

‘Why? Because I’d be the alpha female?’ laughed Villanelle, taking a different tack.

‘Who’s to say I wouldn’t be the dominant one?’ fired back Eve, sitting up straighter. ‘I’m stronger than I look.’

There was another pause. Eve’s challenge was meant as fighting talk, not flirtation. Villanelle didn’t care. She wanted her more; wanted her now. Stepping over the corpse, she took one stride to collapse on the bed. ‘OK then,’ she purred contentedly, like a cat that’s been basking in warm sunlight. ‘You can be on top. Just this once.’

‘Fuck. You.’ The answer shook with barely-controlled anger. Was Eve _still_ upset? So maybe no reconciliation _right_ away. Maybe soon though?

‘You’ll come around. I know it. We’re bound now. Bound by blood.’

‘ _Now_ who’s being a drama queen?’ Eve paused as she heard a fractious intake of breath. She could almost sense the pout develop at the other end of the line.

‘You shouldn’t say that.’

‘Why not?’ Her laugh was at a higher pitch than usual. ‘Why not?’

‘Because I can finish what I started,’ Villanelle warned dully.

‘OK. I’m going now.’

‘No! Please, don’t… I didn’t mean that… I didn’t mean to…’

‘Goodbye, Villanelle.’

‘You can’t say…’

‘What? _‘Goodbye’_? I can.’

Eve pressed the terminate call button with a determined finality, knowing that wouldn’t stop whatever happened next. She and Villanelle _were_ bound together somehow. And she couldn’t escape that fact, no matter how much she resisted it.


	5. Epilogue

The cleaner left the floor polisher at the end of the hospital corridor and hurried away, ending up a mere ten minutes later at a nondescript address off Aldwych. Letting themselves in with a swipe card, they nodded casually to their co-workers before installing themselves behind their desk. A tall, impeccably dressed woman, who had gathered the staff together for their daily briefing, didn’t seem perturbed by the latecomer.

‘All eyes and ears on the target,’ instructed Carolyn, thin-lipped but confident. ‘Remember, wherever Eve goes, Villanelle is sure to follow. And when Villanelle reappears, the Twelve will be scenting their prey. We cannot afford to leave loose ends.’

‘Are we calling one of our operatives a _‘loose end’_?’ enquired a voice from the corner of the dim office, a quiet note of mutiny in their question.

‘Ex-operative,’ shot back Carolyn without missing a beat. ‘Ex.’

She stared down at Kenny, a laser look, until he swivelled his chair silently back to his screen in acquiescence. Then she walked out of the room without another word, while the small team set to work.


End file.
